Most of the the nation was shocked during the 2008 presidential campaign when videos came out of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. After all, this was candidate Barack Obamas spiritual advisor and mentor. The initial reaction was typical of our divided nation. Conservatives pushed the Wright videos and the Left tried to silence their importance. After a while people just got sick of talking about it.

When the dust settled the accepted reality was that Jeremiah Wright was nuts but Obama barely knew the guy and never heard any of Wrights more extreme teaching. Today if you bring up Jeremiah Wright, eyes roll and the Left claims youre making mountains from mole hills. But now a new book has revealed unequivocal proof that Obama was deeply connected to Wright in order to promote and push a socialist agenda.

What makes Kurtzs book so unique and vital among all the other anti-Obama tomes to come out? Simple: Kurtz did original research, digging through obscure archives of socialist groups and piecing together the history of socialism in America in the 70s, 80s, and 90s  and Obamas extensive, overwhelming, intricate connections with it. Its a challenging book to try and summarize adequately. (The whole point is to just try and take in all the evidence that Kurtz has assembled.)

One of the many informative chapters of the book is chapter 8 on Wright. Kurtz shatters many of the myths used by the media and the Obama administration to try to disconnect Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. Obama clearly did not believe some of the lunacy of Wrights views (like the government creating AIDS to kill off black people). However, Obama shared a socialist worldview with Wright and knew he could use Wright and the radical black-church movement he represented to be an important element of Obamas populist-bred, socialist-led coalition.

The facts show that Obama never picked Wrights church simply for lessons on Jesus and the Bible. He understood Wright was a champion of black liberation theology and had the connections to make things happen. Both Obama and Wright were acquainted and even fans of James Cone who wrote the founding text of black liberation theology in 1969. Cone argued that blacks are oppressed by whitey and that the job of the preacher is to angrily call for the destruction of America as he knows it.

Most mainline black churches would eventually reject Cones theology, but some would cling to and champion the message of rising up against a racist and oppressive government. Cone himself has proclaimed that Wrights church (Trinity) best holds to his radical theology. So Kurtz writes bluntly but accurately that Obama arguably belonged to the most radical black church in the country.

Jeremiah Wrights damning videos were obviously not slips of the tongue and momentary outbursts as the Left would have us believe. It is not as if Wright preached on the gospels every week and only shouted down with America once or twice when Obama wasnt around. The evils of America and Zionism was the consistent message of black liberation theology and Jeremiah Wright consistently and passionately proclaimed it.

Kurtz shows that at the time Obama was meeting Jeremiah Wright he was also reading Cones work. Moreover, Wrights Trinity United Church of Christ gave new church members writings on Cone right at the same time Obama joined the church. Obama was reading Cones writings like, Together black religion and Marxist philosophy may show us the way to build a completely new society, when he joined the church known for promoting Cones views. In other words, Obama did not only know about Wrights radical black liberation views, but he joined the church because of them. As Reverend Arthur Brazier, a pastor who used to work with Saul Alinsky proclaimed: Obama preferred Wright because Reverend Wright is more into black liberation.

Kurtz also reveals that in 2004 Wright was in a very public battle in his church with church members who did not like his radical and political teaching. Many in the church despised Wrights consistent talk against Jews and blaming America for 9-11. Such comments at the time were so common that Wright even defended himself in the churchs newsletter and attacked those who disagreed with him. At this very time the Chicago Sun-Times had reported that Obama was attending services on a near-weekly basis and described Reverend Wright as Obamas close confidant. Kurtz asks:

How likely is it, then, that Obama could have been unaware of Wrights views of 9/11, or of the bitter internal conflict roiling his church in 2004? Yet so far from picking up and leaving the congregation (as Oprah Winfrey had years before, out of concern with Wrights inflammatory talk), Obama went on to write a book with a title borrowed from one of Wrights sermons.

We know from some of Obamas earlier writings that he saw the usefulness of churches like Wrights. Pastors had the oratory skills and spiritual authority to spur on congregations to want to take action. But Obama needed a connection from sermons to community and political action. He saw powerful black liberation churches as a key. Such churches believed in deep political involvement.

Shortly after allying with Jeremiah Wright in 1988, Obama wrote:

Nowhere is the promise of organizing more apparent than in the traditional black churches. Possessing tremendous financial resources, membership and  most importantly  values and biblical traditions that call for empowerment and liberation, the black church is clearly a slumbering giant in the political and economic landscape of cities like Chicago Should a mere 50 prominent black churches out of thousands that exists in cities like Chicago, decided to collaborate with a trained and organized staff, enormous political changes could be wrought.

Obama needed and longed for more churches like Trinity and more pastors like Jeremiah Wright. It is ridiculous to think Obama was clueless on the views of Jeremiah Wright. He understood everything Wright was about and joined with him hoping to use Wright as a model and tool for change. As Kurtz points out, Obamas greatest hope, in fact, was to build a political movement around Wright and preachers like him.

Its time to stop rolling our eyes about Jeremiah Wrights connection to Barack Obama. Its time to revisit the topic to better understand what Obamas radical plans are. Its time to put a magnifying glass back on the loud-mouthed Reverend and just how close to Obama he really is. Obamas socialist past is his secret. Reverend Wright is one of several gateways to the truth about the past.

______________________________

Paul Cooper is a husband and father above all else. With a wife and 2 daughters he could use a dog, but sadly he only owns a cat  a female cat no less. Paul is also a pastor, blogger, and business owner. Find him on Twitter.

Oblah-blah's denials about Wright rang hollow at the time, and a real media would have gobbled him up; but, he was twice protected as an African American and as a lefty. Glad to see flesh put on the bones that we already knew about.

Thanks for posting...

And some pings...

7
posted on 01/01/2011 7:06:09 PM PST
by Pharmboy
(What always made the state a hell has been that man tried to make it heaven-Hoelderlin)

I agree and disagree, I think. I'm sure he embraced nothing. However, i am just as sure he used wright and anyone else he could to get the power he covets, because master mesmerizers like wright = votes. Not sure what you mean by "street cred".

I have also a hunch that Kennedy made a deal team Obama: "I'll get you the Catholic vote if you get socialized medicine done".

I suppose it does someone somewhere some good to have all the facts and supporting documents laid out in academic fashion, but it amazes me that there is anyone left (not in complete denial or complicity) who either doesn’t know who Obama is, or thinks it takes more evidence to figure it out.

It’s an interesting thing, but in my psychiatric training I did a lot of ER work, and when I would get a call in the middle of the night from the ER clerk - who knew nothing about the patient and the reason for the referral - to come downstairs and evaluate someone, I would usually know the jist of the situation intuitively before I ever got to the ER, and in cases where I didn’t know it by then I almost always knew it in the first five seconds, and invariably the first five minutes were the absolute most it ever took me to size them up.

Obama’s completely transparent, and I thought the same of him from the outset as many others are starting to figure out now: A deeply flawed and most dangerous man. That even supposedly conservative people are still giving this guy a pass or the benefit of the doubt is beyond my comprehension.

18
posted on 01/01/2011 8:21:10 PM PST
by dagogo redux
(A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)

Street credibility. Obama needed political support from poor urban blacks. Poor urban blacks distrust anyone from outside their community, eg, someone with less prominently black features, not born in an urban US environment, and having more education than they did.

20
posted on 01/01/2011 8:53:57 PM PST
by SteveH
(First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.)

“That even supposedly conservative people are still giving this guy a pass or the benefit of the doubt is beyond my comprehension.”

I would say allegedly conservative. I view most politicians as whores. Many of them have a finger in the air before they even decide which Party they want to run as. Look at the “compromise” Republicans reached with the Obama Administration

“Poor urban blacks distrust anyone from outside their community, eg, someone with less prominently black features, not born in an urban US environment, and having more education than they did.”

I do not see that as an accurate analysis. How does it explain people like Adam Clayton Powell and Charlie Rangel. Both are more educated and do not have prominently black features. This is a complex dynamic that goes back to pre-Civil War days in the slave holding South.

No time now to go into any more detail, but there is much more involved than you have described. No offense intended. I sure don’t want to start a fight.

Ryan Lizza was steadfast about the interview. ( since washed from the internet )
The original article has been washed from the internet.
and The New Republic is blocking wayback.

However, Barack Obama provides an account of his meeting Rev. Wright in Dreams from my Father, as well as this brief bio of Wright on p. 282:

He had grown up in Philadelphia, the son of a Baptist minister. He had resisted his fathers vocation at first, joining the Marines out of college, dabbling with liquor, Islam, and black nationalism in the sixties. But the call of his faith had apparently remained, a steady tug on his heart, and eventually hed entered Howard, then the University of Chicago, where he spent six years studying for a Ph.D. in the history of religion. 

There's another piece to the story ..... the fact that there aren't more churches like Wright's (as Obama hoped there would be), and that even in Wright's church, some congregants had serious problems with Wright's message.

Baraq is 50% white, was raised middle class in Hawaii, attended an elite college prep high school, went to Ivy League colleges, and was a law prof @ Univ of Chicago.

In order to gain the 99% support of the black underclass / black political establishment (which was the foundation of his political career in Illinois), he needed to do his time as a community organizer, marry a "real" black woman, and attend a "real" black church.

How does it explain people like Adam Clayton Powell and Charlie Rangel.

I think they got their badge of blackness during the civil rights era of the 50s and 60s. Baraq was too young for that so he needed other avenues, thus community organizing, marrying a "real" black woman, and attending Rev. Wright's Temple of Hating Whitey.

The facts show that Obama never picked Wrights church simply for lessons on Jesus and the Bible. He understood Wright was a champion of black liberation theology and had the connections to make things happen.

That's a false dichotomy -- either religion or ideology and nothing else.

The other, missing alternative is that he picked the church for the connections and the career help it would give him in the community.

I don't know why Obama picked Wright's church, but to leave out Obama's interest in personal career advancement is to ignore what's usually the biggest part of the puzzle when it comes to politicians.

Although they didn't dwell upon it for weeks on end, as they would have if Obama was a conservative, the alphabet networks all aired Wright's "GD America" speech for all to see. That should have been enough. But the American people put him in office in a landslide.

The conservative talk radio jocks are fond of saying "The American people are not stupid". It's a nice, populist thing to say. It's good for ratings, I'm sure. But, if we're not a stupid people, we do not come close to electing people like him. Or Pelosi, or Reid, or Frank, or Boxer, and on and on.

“The other missing alternative is that he picked the church for the connection and the career help it would give him in the community...I don’t know why Obama picked Wright’s church, but to leave out Obama’s interest in personal career advancement is to ignore what’s usually the biggest part of the puzzle when it comes to politicians.”

A major point is that he picked that church because he could use it to help his agenda advance - which of course includes his career. Maybe I just assumed that was obvious and should have spelled it out more. But it wasn’t just that Obama wanted his career to advance for personal glory. He wanted to advance so he could advance his radical ideology. They are connected.

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